(#166392) California: a pleasure trip from Gotham to the Golden Gate. (April, May, June, 1877.) By Mrs. Frank Leslie. Profusely illustrated. Mrs. Frank Leslie, Miriam Florence Folline.

California: a pleasure trip from Gotham to the Golden Gate. (April, May, June, 1877.) By Mrs. Frank Leslie. Profusely illustrated. New York: G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers. London: S. Low, Son & Co., MDCCCXXVII [1877]. 18x12.2 cm, pp. [1-2] [i-v] 6 [vii] viii [ix] x-xiv [17] 18-286 [1]-2: ads [note: preliminaries erratically paginated; complete despite gap in pagination], flyleaves at front and rear, 47 illustrations, many full page on tipped in plates, original green cloth, front panel stamped in black, spine panel stamped in gold, rear panel stamped in blind, lavender endpapers. First edition. "A travel narrative of an 1877 trip from New York to San Francisco. Miriam Leslie, with her husband, publisher Frank Leslie, a party of ten reporters and artists, and her terrier Follette, set off on a luxury rail excursion across the West, partially funded by the Central and Union Pacific railroads. Accounts of their visits to the main attractions of the West were published in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper in an effort to popularize transcontinental tourism and show that it could be accomplished in comfort and style. Prior to wedding Frank Leslie at age thirty-eight, Miriam had been married and divorced twice, worked as an actress, and traveled widely in Europe, the United States, and South America with her second husband, archaeologist Ephraim Squier. Following Frank Leslie’s death, she took over management of his publishing empire, briefly married Oscar Wilde’s brother William, became active in the woman’s suffrage movement, and returned to California twice before her death in 1914" (Madeline B. Stern, introduction to California: a pleasure trip from Gotham to the Golden Gate ... [Nieuwkoop: B. De Graaf, 1972]). Cowan (1933), p. 389. Paher 1122. A bright, very good copy. (#166392).

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